Crystal Palace is set to beat Arsenal to the signature of Lens midfielder, Cheick Doucoure, hours after Chelsea hijacked their transfer for Raphinha.
Arsenal has signed Matt Turner, Marquinhos and Fabio Vieira in the last few weeks.
A move for Gabriel Jesus will be completed soon, and these deals show they are moving fast in this transfer window.
Despite their speed, some targets are slipping from them. A report on The Guardian says Doucoure will play in the Premier League next season, but it won’t be for Arsenal.
Instead, he would turn out for Crystal Palace, who have agreed a deal with his present club.
The report says the Eagles will pay a fee rising to £22m for the 22-year-old who has been one of Patrick Vieira’s key targets in this transfer window.
Just Arsenal Opinion
Doucoure did well in Ligue 1 last season, and his age means he can even get better.
A move to a league that has more quality than Ligue 1 means he will almost certainly show more than he has done so far.
We must act faster if we want to stop losing transfer targets to other clubs, but we have also bought well.
There are other midfielders on our wishlist, and we can simply turn towards adding them to the squad at the Emirates now.
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Can anyone take me to any official article saying we were actually bidding for these players?
We might as well have an article for every single transfer taking place and say we missed out on said player.
To date, we have been unofficially linked with over forty players and counting.
We definitely bid for Raphinha
Not sure why but obviously CL football is the bigger draw so no loss there IMO as that’s not a position that needs upgrading .
But not being in the Cl really does limit what players we can go for no matter how fans try to spin that it doesn’t.
I agree with you, we have probably made an offer for Raphinha, but not been willing to meet Leeds United’s evaluation. Which means we haven’t lost anything but decided to walk away…
Well said Ken
Really, we made an offer for Raphinha but our offer was to low, and we didn’t return with a better offer. Which means we weren’t willing to meet Leeds United’s evaluation.
There have been some rumours about Doucoure, but we haven’t made any offer and he’s probably among many players we have been tracking. Not doing anything means he can’t be among our main targets.
Neither have been lost as, a) they haven’t signed for anyone yet and b) there is no proof we are or were in for them.
👍👍
Totally agree with Ken.
Firstly, transfers are not done overnight – there’s a huge amount of work necessary on each one. It’s logistically impossible for any club to handle multiple transfer negotiations at once. Risk losing Martinez or Jesus and we could transfer our legal, negotiating, finance and PR team to Doucoure or others. Is that what people want?
Secondly, if every player we are linked to by the media are really being chased by Arsenal, we would have a squad of 100 and a budget of £500m. Most are media or agent inventions.
Thirdly, even if Doucoure IS on our shortlist, they ALL bar 2 or 3 are “either/or’s” not “must have’s” because every team knows you don’t win them all.
Please, it is either disingenuous or totally idiotic to accuse us, this season in particular, of acting too slowly. A little realism would help.
Spot on Guy.
because every team knows you don’t win them all.
Chelsea do?
The current negotiating staff and method will assure no top 4 finish. Stan? No Miracles. A much more aggressive method is necessary. Young Arsenal players-get out!
For the sake of £18m or whatever I think Doucoure would’ve been a good signing for our midfield. Wish we would hijack this. No doubt he’ll do well then we’ll be wanting to sign him for a ridiculous amount
How do we know this guy was “an Arsenal target”?
The first I heard of it was yesterday and today it’s “Oh no, we’ve lost out againnnn, we must change everything we do”.
Get a grip guys, there’s 2 months to go in this window and already 4 signings. I’m more worried about getting rid of players who won’t play in the shirt again, there’s still some preparing for future windows to do right now – something like 5 players to move on to pastures new?
I think we’ve just decided to go with what we’ve got in midfield. I don’t understand it. There was a blatant hole in centre mid in plenty of our games last season, but we seem blind to it.
A good player, I would gave liked him in Arsenal from the few bits I have seen. I do not think he was an Arsenal target though.
Some reports mentioned his teammate is in Arsenal shortlist Seko Fofana.
It seems Seko is a backup target, may be to Youri T.